April 6 marked the Standard cycle shift for Hearthstone, from the Year of the Kraken to the Year of the Mammoth. This marked the transition from a stale metagame that cursed the life out of me because meta decks spread as far as Rank 20, to one filled with stuff unknown to many until a couple of days.

(Creds to the owners of the pics~ Again with me “stealing”. :< The only thing mine is the game ss.)

Yay. Another one~ I thank the tempo from the annoying English 10 paper I had to do just as I declared myself being free from my second year in college. Stupid professor. He should seriously quit his job. No kidding. But enough about that! Let’s talk Hearthstone! After the longest time I haven’t. :< Continue reading →

Hey, what up? I’m back, but this time, I’ll be heading back to the hype I missed weeks ago and hopefully just giving a recap of the most recent epic new game mode Blizzard just released for Hearthstone. They named it Tavern Brawl, clearly depicting chaos throughout the inn as every week, there are different rules that spice up the game. From preset decks to card restrictions, we just experienced the first week, starting with preset decks for our two main villains in the latest expansion, Ragnaros the Firelord and Nefarian a.k.a Blackwing.

Well, college life and laziness screwed me over again, but here I go as I review the 2 wings of Blackrock Mountain: A Hearthstone Adventure, released on two succeeding weeks.

During the initial hype of Blackrock Mountain, I was in my aunts’ place, coming home after a Good Friday tradition called visita iglesia. The Internet was crappy, but it’s alright since I just need to buy the first wing and play the bosses. The adventures had no timers, so I didn’t have to worry about roping. XD

Pretty straightforward. And the tip here is to have a lot of huge minions in your deck. And by huge, I mean those costing over 6 mana and stats over 4/4, or something like that.

He also plays a lot of huge minions, so during the Mulligan, keep any hard removal. Coren’s removals are that of Warriors. Whirlwind/Execute combo, and the never-absent Inner Rage kill when any of your minions is at 1 health.

This one is tons of fun! His deck is composed of 30 Legendary minions. Yes, you heard that right! 30 of them. And you basically beat him by rushing him down, not letting any of the heavy Legendaries to come into play. XD In case you do, well, good luck. Actually, you don’t need good luck. Since his deck is just composed of minions, you don’t need to worry about any sort of removal. And most of the time, he only drops one minion at a time, giving you a lot of time to set up.

Kneel before the summoner of Ragnaros! His hero power is Insta-kill! But a man has his limits, and one of those is his wife. Moira Bronzebeard appears in play at the very start of the match, and she disables Thaurissan’s hero power. She only attacks minions with Taunt, so don’t even dare to play Taunt minions unless you’re gonna kill it off immediately.

Reward: Gang Up (On beating the wing, Emperor Thaurissan)

Class Challenges:

Hunter vs Coren Direbrew: Beast Boys

Your deck consists of most of the Beasts in the game, along with necessary spells like Unleash the Hounds, Arcane Shot, and Quick Shot. Your Pile On! RNG should be nice in order to win this match. To note, Gahz’rilla is also in your deck, so if you get him, you can actually OTK him.

Reward: Quick Shot

Mage vs High Justice Grimstone: The Unstable Portal Challenge

From the people who brought you the Webspinner Challenge, here is the Unstable Portal Challenge!

Your turn 1 is dead, but every other turn is fun non-stop! If Grimstone summons Millhouse Manastorm, you’re in for a hell lot of fun! More often than not, you win this easily from RNG. ’nuff said.

Reward: Dragon’s Breath

And, inspired by my recent endeavor on 11-winstreak Hunter, I present to you, The Molten Core!

Don’t underestimate his Hero Power. He starts the game with 7 0/5 Firesworn that have a deathrattle that deals 1*X damage to the enemy hero, where X is the number of Firesworn that died on that turn. If they all die on the same turn at the same time, they deal 7 damage to you 7 times. Instakill… Luckily, there’s a Priest card for that, and that’s Mass Dispel! If you’re not playing Priest, then kill the Firesworn one-by-one, ideally one per turn. He restocks Firesworn every once in a while with a card of the same name, so be wary of that.

I first thought it was deal 5 per unspent Mana. GG if that was the case. Obviously, you make a deck containing cards of almost all the mana numbers, from 1-9, ideally. Usually, though, 5 damage to the face is tolerable, and a fair warning, if you plan to rush him down, do it sparingly. He has a handful of Molten Giants in his hand for some crazy reason. Baron also has some crazy removal, so be wary of that.

Executus is pretty easy to beat, because his freakin’ hand is filled with Molten Giants!!!!

You read it right! Molten Giants! If there is anything else he has, well, they’re easy to deal with.

Pro-tip: Don’t rush him down aggro-style. Kill him slowly like how you play against Handlock. Put him at 20 minus his mana count. Then, after you kill Executus, Ragnaros shows up with 16 health (8+8 armor) and an oddly familiar Hero Power. By this time, you will have prepared for him, unless you have enough means to kill Ragnaros at that.

Executus Heroic spoiler pro-tip: Kel’Thuzad.

KT behind a Taunt is pretty game-breaking for the AI. I’ll just leave it at that.

The deck is filled with early-game cards, something you’ll really need to pull off the same strategy with the normal version. This should be simple if you followed the strategy with Garr above.

Reward: Axe Flinger

Shaman vs Baron Geddon: Overload vs Overheat

If you didn’t get what that means, well, you haven’t played that much Shaman yet. Overload is the mana-locking mechanism in Hearthstone. With the new card Lava Shock, this allows you to cancel the mana-lock altogether! The deck is filled with cards that either feed on Overload or use so much absurd Overload that they don’t see play in Constructed anymore. Also, with Overload, this teaches you how to play around your mana so you don’t get hit by Baron’s Ignite Mana. For experienced players, this should be an easy challenge.